Got an email this week from a very helpful person who found my family tree online and gave me a link to several Genealogy.com message board postings he made regarding a family surname found in my tree. Most of the threads date from 2006.

The postings take this surname back to the 1600s, and have lots of words in them, including multiple probables, i.e., probable son, probable daughter, probable wife. There are also a number of connections of the probable people to probable fame.

I've read through them and have not found the connection to the man listed in my family tree, born in 1852, and married to one of the women in my direct ancestral line.

I have over 20,000 people in my GEDCOM - and as it is, it needs some cleaning up. I've weeded out dupes - mostly of wives for whom I had no maiden name at first, but later discovered who she was. I still have a lot of MNUs.

I replied to this man when I got his email, thanking him and saying I would be reviewing these posts this weekend.

But I don't see a connection. And I'm not going to hang a bunch of probable people on unconnected limbs of the family tree and cite these message board posts as my authority.

And I'm pretty certain this man will watch my GEDCOM to see if they appear in a new update.

And probably contact me again.

Anyone got a polite reply I can give him when he asks why I haven't included all his probable ancestors in the GEDCOM?

no subject

I've said that to people before. As you noted, most realize the commonsense of it.

However, I've also had running battles with a couple of folks - one in comments to this blog, and one by email, where I finally had to block the emailer, and delete comments in the blog. I hate to do the second, but she had gotten wildly off-track and was on the attack.